Sun Microsystems VERSION 3.1.0_BETA2 ISCSI servers, Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking

5 Virtual storage

5.8 iSCSI servers

iSCSI stands for “Internet SCSI” and is a standard that allows for using the SCSI proto- col over Internet (TCP/IP) connections. Especially with the advent of Gigabit Ethernet, it has become affordable to attach iSCSI storage servers simply as remote hard disks to a computer network. In iSCSI terminology, the server providing storage resources is called an “iSCSI target”, while the client connecting to the server and accessing its resources is called “iSCSI initiator”.

VirtualBox can transparently present iSCSI remote storage to a virtual machine as a virtual hard disk. The guest operating system will not see any difference between a virtual disk image (VDI file) and an iSCSI target. To achieve this, VirtualBox has an integrated iSCSI initiator.

VirtualBox’s iSCSI support has been developed according to the iSCSI standard and should work with all standard-conforming iSCSI targets. To use an iSCSI target with VirtualBox, you must first register it as a virtual hard disk with VBoxManage; see chapter 8.19, VBoxManage addiscsidisk, page 128. The target will show up in the list of disk images, as described in chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager, page 80, and can thus be attached to one of the VM’s three hard disk slots the usual way.

5.8.1 Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking

As an experimental feature, VirtualBox allows for accessing an iSCSI target running in a virtual machine which is configured for using Internal Networking mode (as de- scribed in chapter 6.5, Internal networking, page 93). The setup of the virtual machine which uses such an iSCSI target is done as described above. The only difference is that the IP address of the target must be specified as a numeric IP address.

The IP stack accessing Internal Networking must be configured in the virtual ma- chine which accesses the iSCSI target. A free static IP and a MAC address not used by other virtual machines must be chosen. In the example below, adapt the name of the virtual machine, the MAC address, the IP configuration and the Internal Networking name (“MyIntNet”) according to your needs. The following seven commands must be issued:

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Trusted 1

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/MAC 08:00:27:01:02:0f

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/IP 10.0.9.1

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/Netmask 255.255.255.0

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Driver IntNet

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Config/Network MyIntNet

VBoxManage setextradata VMNAME VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Config/IsService 1

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